


Trexel Geistman's Seven Rules for Literary Success

by syrupwit



Category: Stellar Firma (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Mentions of David 7's Crush on Bathin, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Implied One-Sided Trexel/David 7, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/pseuds/syrupwit
Summary: Trexel gives David some unsolicited writing advice.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 40
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Trexel Geistman's Seven Rules for Literary Success

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mossy_Birch (Mossy_Bench)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mossy_Bench/gifts).



> For the prompt: "Bad poetry detected. Security alerted."

IMOGEN beeped. _Bad poetry detected. Security alerted._

David 7, interrupted in the recital of his 17th ode to Bathin, groaned with frustration. “How can I improve if you won’t give me meaningful criticism?”

A buzzer noise. _Writing advice is not an unlockable feature at this time._

“I’m not asking for an in-depth critique, just a pointer or two—”

Suddenly, Trexel burst through the door, looking wild-eyed and poorly rested. The scent of several days’ worth of hard drinking wafted in after him. “What’s this about writing advice?”

“Agh!” David yelled, nearly tripping over his own legs as he scrambled to back away from Trexel. “What are you doing here? It’s Sunday!”

“Are you sure?” Trexel frowned.

 _Today is Sunday,_ IMOGEN confirmed brightly.

“I must be so hungover from Friday night that I overestimated the amount of time I slept. That makes more sense than someone inventing a conspiracy to keep me out of the office with fake dates… or does it?” Trexel narrowed his gaze suspiciously. “But you were saying you wanted writing advice.”

David muttered something, and Trexel moved closer to hear him, making him flinch away. “What?”

“I don’t want it from _you._ ”

“Now there’s a phrase I’ve heard a lot,” Trexel laughed. “Beggars can’t ride horses, David! If they could, Stellar Firma would just be a big stable, and that’d be no good. Imagine the smell.”

David, trying to breathe through his mouth, said, “Can’t you just leave? Or, if you really want to stick around, we can start brainstorming for Monday’s brief—”

“No!” Trexel shouted, then spoke more quietly. “Don’t think about work. That’s why you’re struggling; you haven’t given in to the muse. A true artist surrenders themselves so entirely that they can think of nothing but art.”

“Well, since my continued existence is kind of predicated on thinking about things besides art, I guess I’ll never be a true artist. How disappointing. You can leave now.”

“Stop, David. Relax. I know why I’m here now: to teach you. To _educate_ you.” Trexel puffed up his chest. “I’m going to take you through Trexel Geistman’s Seven Rules for Literary Success, and then everything you write will be perfect. Or not perfect, but still pretty great, in a way that is wholly attributable to me.”

“Since when are you a writer?”

“Since always, David. Since birth. Don’t you remember my manuscript? Capaltan Dag, Dominic Quailface, a breezy summer afternoon on Earth 3.6… Birds singing in the trees, gladiators screaming their last in the bloodsport pits…”

“Now that you mention it, I do remember something like that.” David pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on though he'd started to acclimate to Trexel’s alcoholic miasma. “Why only seven rules?”

“That’s a very green question,” said Trexel. “I can tell you’re a newbie. Every writer knows that seven is the most mystical writing number after three. Thirteen is up there too, and I’d make an argument for nine, ten, or even twelve. But I don’t have nine or twelve rules, I have seven; and the sooner you shut up and receive my knowledge, the sooner we’ll be done.”

David sighed. “I guess.”

“Take notes, David. Do you have a notepad? A cute little journal where you jot down your little clone thoughts?”

“I have this roll of moldy receipt paper that fell out of the vent.” David held it up. “And, uh, this pen you left here the other week because you thought it was cursed.”

Trexel nodded. “That’ll do. Now, the first rule is: Write whatever I want.”

“Write whatever I want, got it.” David made a show of scribbling on his paper.

“No, David. Whatever _I_ want. When you’re coming up with ideas, confine yourself to things I’d like to read. That means books about talking animals; it means westerns where one of the characters is a steam-powered robot; it means plausibly deniable softcore erotica centered on acts that would be impossible to carry out in real life. No epic sea voyages, no mystery-solving boarding school students, and certainly no graphic novels. Just call them picture books! That’s what they are!”

“What’s a western?” David wanted to know. He kept to himself that he would've liked to read a picture book.

“It’s a type of genre fiction set in a desert, but one that’s more rocky than sandy.”

“Ah.”

“Usually westerns have cactus in them, which is a kind of big bristly mushroom they used to have on Earth. Loulabella Anas-Marum has a famous series called _Spines of Ardor_ about a seductive yet vulnerable were-cactus. Personally, I think the addition of a robot or two would much improve the story, but who listens to me? No one, David. No one but you.”

“You’re forgetting IMOGEN,” David pointed out, uncomfortable. This type of insight from Trexel often precipitated a spiral.

_IMOGEN closely monitors all security threats. That is not the same as listening._

“See?” Trexel clapped his hands together. “Right, let’s move on. The second rule is: Only write on subjects you know very little about. People will say, ‘write what you know.’ They’ll say, ‘if you’re unfamiliar with a topic, research it.’ I say, ‘pah!’ The best writing occurs when you have total creative freedom, and what are reality and facts but the bars of a mental prison?”

“Okay.”

“‘Okay?’ David, I’ve just imparted a profound truth whose realization was decades in the making, and your response is ‘okay?’”

“Thank you, Trexel, for this incredible wisdom,” David rolled his eyes.

“You’re welcome. Now, where was I?” Trexel thought back. “The third rule… the third rule is that you can’t write characters doing anything you wouldn’t do in real life. If you wouldn’t lock your career rival in an enclosure with the Ravenous Klimpty of Shruff, you have no right to make a fictional person do it.”

_Zoo Murders suspect list updated. Security alerted._

“Doesn’t that contradict the second rule, though?”

“It’s a fine needle to thread. You have to strike a balance between knowing enough to imagine what you’d do in a situation, and being ignorant enough that you can’t realistically appreciate the consequences of your actions or anything that would prevent you from taking them. As they say, a little knowledge makes you dangerous.”

David thought. “So that’s like if I wrote a book about pirates—”

“Space pirates, David, remember my distaste for sea journeys—”

“—if I wrote a story about space pirates, uh, going into a black hole? But because I don’t know much about black holes, they come out the other side in a secret star lagoon and one of the pirates duels a space walrus to let them shelter there.”

Trexel sucked in a breath. “Do you know what a space walrus is?”

“Sort of?”

“Space walruses are ferociously dangerous, David. Your space pirate would have to be quite the duelist.”

“Well, dueling space walruses is something I think I’d do in real life, so…”

“Now that’s suspending my disbelief a little too far.” Trexel gasped. “Ahh, my disbelief is falling! Pull it back.”

_Figure of speech detected. Security alerted._

David said, “If you’re really a writer, you can pull your disbelief back yourself.”

“That’s not how it works. I’m the reader in this scenario.”

“How would you make it believable to a reader, then?” David challenged. “As a writer.”

Trexel cleared his throat, then adopted a narrator voice. “The pirate tries to duel the space walrus, but he’s hopelessly outmatched. While his crew watches in horror, just as the space walrus is about to gore him to death, a mysterious figure emerges from the shadows and dispatches it in one mighty strike—”

“Let me guess,” David interrupted. “That figure's name is Trexel Geistman.”

Trexel stared at him in wounded consternation. “A self-insert? Do you truly think so little of me, David?”

“Erm… yes?”

“That stings. It really does.” Trexel sniffed. “The figure was going to be Dominic Quailface, traveling through time after his apprenticeship with a reclusive weapons master. Now I want to spoil the planned ending of my manuscript for you, since you obviously hold such contempt for the fruits of my imagination.”

“Oh no. Please don’t. I’m _so_ invested in the story.” Internally, David was proud of his deadpan delivery.

Trexel chuckled, mollified. “All right, I’ll be merciful just this once. Let’s move on to the fourth rule.” He flashed four fingers. “Don’t write consistently. You know who builds a regular time for writing into their weekly schedule? A square, and not only that, a square who wants to violate the laws of nature. Write once every six months when the spirit takes you, because that’s the authentic way.

“The fifth rule: It is not only acceptable but mandatory to physically fight your critics. If you don’t know where to find them, hunt them down. Every criticism— no matter how accurate, trivial, or tempered with praise—should be taken as a personal insult of the direst sort. How can people respect you as an artist when you don’t defend your reputation?

“The sixth rule… We’re flying through these, David. Do you have any questions so far?” Trexel paused, looking at him expectantly.

“No, no questions. I’m just eager to process this information as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll ask _you_ questions, then. Teaching is much more satisfying when it’s interactive.” Trexel tapped the side of his glasses, then the sides of his second and third pairs of glasses. “What do you mainly write, David?”

“Um.” Throughout the conversation, David’s mind had drifted back to his ode. He was experiencing doubts about the ode’s conceit, a comparison of Bathin’s nipples with exploding stars. “Poetry.”

“What kind of poetry?”

David said, “Oh, I don’t really have a style. Sometimes I throw in a rhyme or two, but it’s mostly whatever sounds nice to me. Just expressing my thoughts and feelings, getting it all out there.”

Trexel was quiet for a moment, processing this. At last he said, “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

_Doubtful!_

“There are only two acceptable types of poetry, David. There’s the type that adheres to a tightly controlled, highly specific scheme of form and subject. Then there’s the type that discards all conventions—including the conventions of the language it’s composed in—to forge ahead with a new, semi-incomprehensible artistic path. Everything else is garbage. Garbage!” Trexel shuddered with revulsion. “But that’s all right. You’re a beginner, and you can learn.”

“Can we get on to the sixth rule, please?”

“Fine. You’ll appreciate this one; it’s particularly applicable to poetry.” Trexel made a dramatic pause. “The sixth rule is: Use a thesaurus for everything.”

_Thesaurus detected. Security notified, forewarned, and put on guard._

“Okay.” David wrote it down.

“Let me explain. Words, David. We know what they are, but do we really?” Trexel began to stroll back and forth, warming to his topic. “I’d wager we don’t. Words: a collection of sounds, of noises. Movements of the mouth, the vocal cords. One movement is much like another, or is it? That’s what words want you to think. But you and I know better, David. And what we know is… erm…”

“Thesaurus,” David prompted.

“Right. In a thesaurus, words do battle, but only you can choose the victor. It’s your chance to seize control of words instead of letting them manipulate you. Why settle for plain, everyday words when you can have the cream of the crop? Why go with ‘clear’ when ‘luculent’ exists? Why acquiesce to ‘walk’ when ‘wend’ and ‘gallivant’ are right there? ‘Said’ is dead, David; these days we asseverate, aver, and animadvert. Now give me a line.”

“A line?”

“From one of your poems, David. Unless they’re too short to have lines.”

An hour ago, when he was experiencing what felt like success with the poem, David would have happily shouted it into Trexel’s ear with a megaphone. Now, put on the spot, he found himself reluctant to share. He fidgeted, excess slime slicking his forehead. “Um, just a minute.”

“Are you embarrassed? Don’t be. I don’t expect it to be any good.”

“No idea why anyone wouldn’t want to share their poetry with you,” David grumbled. “Okay. Here’s the line: _One billion degrees Celsius / can’t melt this love away from us._ ”

“That’s two lines, David.”

“They would have sounded weird by themselves, Trexel.”

“Context is for the weak. These lines are also weak. It all ties together, doesn’t it?” Trexel furrowed his brow, a strange expression crossing his face. “By ‘us,’ do you mean you and…?”

David felt himself flush. “It’s obviously metaphorical and not referring to real people.”

“If you say so, David. Do you have the full draft handy to examine?”

The full draft was saved on a top-secret server somewhere deep in IMOGEN’s memory, along with its 16 companions and a variety of other writing projects. David didn’t like to imagine Trexel accessing any of them. “No.”

Trexel sighed. “I guess we’ll work with what we have. Reviewing your lines, I noticed two opportunities for improvement via word replacement: ‘melt,’ and ‘love.’ IMOGEN, get me access to the Stellar Firma Ltd. Proprietary Thesaurus.”

_Access denied. User Trexel Geistman’s thesaurus privileges are currently revoked due to the ginger incident._

“That’s all right. The greatest thesaurus is the one you carry around in your head.” Trexel twirled an imaginary mustache, thinking. “Here you are, David. For ‘melt’: _deliquesce._ For ‘love’: _amorousness._ ”

“ _One billion degrees Celsius / can’t deliquesce this amorousness away from us,_ ” murmured David to himself, then scowled. “No thank you, those will mess up the meter.”

Trexel scoffed. “What meter? It only works if you stress the wrong syllable in ‘degrees.’ Regardless, you ought to be grateful, since I’m giving you an extra rhyme. You don’t see the other consultants giving their clones extra rhymes.”

David gritted his teeth. “Maybe I don’t want your extra rhyme. Maybe I want to keep my lines the way they are.” He regretted sharing even this much of his work with Trexel, and was starting to feel that the discussion had tainted it. Perhaps it was time to start an 18th ode.

Trexel shrugged. “Dig your own grave, sure. That’s fine with me.”

“Ugh,” David snapped. “Can we just go to the last thing so this can be over?”

Trexel scrutinized him. “You’re very defensive. What are you hiding?”

“I'm not defensive! I'm sensitive and private. You know, like an artist.”

“Hmm.” Trexel spent a good deal longer looking at David than David would have liked. Thoughts flitted across his face, frustratingly inaccessible. Then he said, “David, are you in love with me?”

“What?” David’s disbelief was unfeigned. “No, no, NO. Absolutely not.”

“I don’t blame you. Mine is the friendly, mentoring face you see, day after day. Mine are the ears that hear your complaints, your aspirations, your intimate confessions. Mine is the tongue that speaks a word of wisdom, only for you. After these weeks together, and my heroic intervention at your trial, it’s entirely understandable that you’d develop feelings for me. And I’m not saying it’s unrequited, but Stellar Firma would never allow—”

David cut in quickly, not prepared to hear the rest. “I’m not in love with you, Trexel. If you must know, I was writing a love poem to Bathin.”

“Pardon?” said Trexel, cleaning his ear. “A love poem to whom?”

“Could you not do that in front of me? Bathin. You know: the Great Duke of Galactonium, your old school fr…enemy. Does a bunch of charity work, stands around in the rain shirtless, has frankly divine abs—”

_Yum, Bathin’s abs._

Trexel interjected with a horrific guttural noise. When David tried to pick up where he left off, Trexel made another noise. It sounded like a small instrument was stuck in his throat.

“Are you so offended that you’re going to leave, or…?” David trailed off hopefully.

Trexel closed his eyes. “David, I was wrong. I know that’s hard to process, but we’ll get through it together. There are actually eight rules, Trexel Geistman’s Eight Rules for Literary Success.”

“Oh.”

“The seventh rule—I was going to share this with you no matter what, you have to credit me there—the seventh rule is that you should only write for fame and money, not because you enjoy it. But the eighth and most important rule is that no one can write anything nice about Bathin!” His voice went up in a shriek at the end, then broke.

While David cut his gaze to the ceiling and thought about Bathin’s abs, Trexel began to weep.

“Are we done here?” David asked, when Trexel’s sobs and anguished mutters of “ _Bathin_ ” had died down. “Until tomorrow, I mean.”

“Oh, we’re done all right, David. For now.” Viciousness underlay Trexel’s words. “As your writing teacher, I’m giving you an assignment.”

“Since when are you my writing teacher?”

“Since I answered your call for help. Anyway, you need to write a poem about me—a portrait in words, as it were. A celebration of my virtues, and how much better I am than Bathin. It’s due tomorrow.”

“You should get here early to help me workshop it,” said David carefully.

“Maybe I will, David. Maybe I will.” Trexel cleared his throat. “Now, I’m going to go get drunk. There are still hours left in the weekend, and I’m tired of being hungover. Sweet dreams! I know you’ll miss me.”

“Bye,” David called, as he left. The air purification system kicked on, dispatching the lingering smell of alcohol far more efficiently with its source out of the room.

When Trexel had been gone for a while, David slumped forward and heaved a sigh of relief. He tore off the paper he’d been taking notes on, crumpled it, and threw it in the corner. After a moment, he threw the pen too, so hard it bounced off the wall.

“IMOGEN, are you there?” he asked, finally.

_IMOGEN online. How can I help you?_

“Can I get some real advice now?”

**Author's Note:**

> Trexel Geistman's ~~Seven~~ Eight Rules for Literary Success:
> 
>   1. Write things Trexel wants to read.
>   2. Write on subjects that you know very little about.
>   3. Make your characters do things that you would do in real life.
>   4. Write irregularly.
>   5. Fight your critics, physically.
>   6. Use a thesaurus for everything.
>   7. Write for fame and money, not because you enjoy it.
>   8. The only negative rule: Never write anything nice about Bathin.
> 

> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed. ♥ ♥ ♥


End file.
